


A Massive Catastrophe

by Marijke_Rose



Series: Whumptober 2020 [27]
Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Day 27, M/M, Power Outage, Whumptober 2020, no.27
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:53:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marijke_Rose/pseuds/Marijke_Rose
Summary: The Massive’s power suddenly goes out...
Relationships: Almighty Tallest Purple/Almighty Tallest Red
Series: Whumptober 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948705
Kudos: 24
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	A Massive Catastrophe

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place some time after the episode ‘Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars’.

The Massive, flagship of the Irken Empire, was advancing along on it’s merry path of destruction, death, and general mayhem for all the planets marked for conquest. Thousands of tiny ships flanked it, making up it’s deadly escort.

A lonely asteroid drifted by.

First came the silence. The steady hum of its engine died, leaving an eerie silence in its absence. Then the lights of one deck flickered out, followed by the next. It’s escort passed it by as it coasted in the vacuum. Without stabilisers, it began to rotate and the smaller ships had to dart out of the way to not be hit by the colossus.

As per safety protocols, hard-coded to activate in an emergency, the ship drew from its reserves to shut heavy protective panels over the windows - plunging its crew into pitch darkness as a side effect.

  
  


***

  
  


“What happened?!” a shrill voice cried out in the dark.

“I don’t know!” replied a nasally one. “We’ve lost power!”

“Oh, no! I can’t see!”

“You have ocular implants, just open your eyes!”

“Okay... Hey, I can see! But why is it dark?!”

“Why are we shouting?!”

Tallest Red glared as he looked around the bridge. He turned towards a computer console. And kept turning. And turning and turning.

“Hey, the gravity’s out!” Purple shouted.

“Ya think?!” Red snapped as he used his PAK legs to grab onto an errant cable that was also conveniently there when he needed it. He watched Purple float by.

“I have no idea where I’m going!” Purple shouted just before he bumped into the wall. “Ow!”

Red looked around. The centre platform, which _hovered,_ was nowhere to be seen. The cable he was clinging to was too far from the nearest console for even his PAK legs to reach.

Without the artificial gravity, there was no way to orient himself. He knew they were tumbling about in space, but even that was just his knowledge of what happened to ships when their engines and stabilisers went out rather than something he experienced.

He looked back at Purple, but his co-ruler was no longer there.

“Okay, feeling stupid now!” Purple shouted from above him and Red looked up to see him drifting along the pipes and cables of the bridge’s ceiling.

“Looking pretty stupid too,” Red called back, not even trying to supress his amusement.

However, Purple wasn’t the only one drifting about like an inactive SIR unit and not a single Irken so much as giggled as they bumped into things and each other. Instead, they flailed about to grab onto something and ultimately missed every time in their panic.

Red snorted with disdainful laughter as two decided to cling to each other while they tumbled about. The bridge crew was completely useless in an emergency!

He turned his gaze back to the console and smirked at it as he extended another PAK leg. Holding the cable with his hands, he pointed both PAK legs behind him. Their tips opened and his thrusters ignited.

He let go of the cable and flew over to the console. With two more PAK legs, he grabbed hold of it and, like a spider, he crawled over to the other side and tapped the controls.

When nothing happened, he slammed his fist down in frustration, leaving a dent.

He hissed. Of course! Without power, the computer didn’t work either. 

He looked back up at Purple… but saw the two hugging Irkens instead of his co-ruler.

He looked around until he spotted him, now floating in his direction. Soon he would be beneath him. And there was the centre platform too, secured by robotic arms just a few metres down.

Red extended a PAK leg towards Purple and, when he was close enough, hooked it around his thin waist and drew him in.

“Saved ya!” he said as he pulled Purple against him and replaced his PAK leg with his arm.

“Thank Irk!” Purple said, relieved. Then he looked at Red with big eyes. “What are we going to do?”

Red sighed. “We’re going to wait until the Armada figures out we need help.”

“What?!”

“Everything’s down, Pur,” Red cried back. “Thrusters, communications, gravity, life support. We’re stuck here!”

“Life support’s off?” Purple repeated and Red could smell his partner’s petrification.

“Don’t worry, the bridge still has life support,” Red assured him. Any room the Tallest were in would have it as long as they had a little reserve power left. “And even if not, our PAK’s will keep us alive.”

“Oh, yeah,” Purple said, greatly relieved. He still clung to Red. “How did we lose power anyway?”

“I dunno,” Red said, shrugging.

“Hey! Didn’t we just change our power core anyway?”

“Yeah…” Then Red’s antennae sprung up as he realised something. “But we didn’t get a _new_ one, we swapped our Zimfected one with the Resisty’s ship’s!”

“So?”

“Well, I’m sure theirs wasn’t new either!” Red snapped. As much as he loved his co-Tallest, Purple could be positively dim-witted at times! Okay, mostly just in emergencies.

Purple sighed and clung tighter to him. “So… we’re just… stuck here until someone helps us?”

“Yeah,” Red affirmed with a nod. “And who knows how long that’ll take those idiots. They’re probably still busy dodging the Massive and asking themselves what WE’RE doing.”

“WE’RE STUCK IN HERE, YOU IDIOTS!!!”

“They can’t HEAR you!” Red snapped. “Even if these walls weren’t soundproof, sound can’t travel through the vacuum of space!” Though that had never stopped Zim, had it?

He heard his partner take a deep breath and clamped his hand over Purple's mouth. His scream came out as a squeak.

“Being LOUDER isn’t going to help! You’ll just make everyone start… not hearing things anymore!” He removed his hand.

“‘Go deaf’?”

Red grinned; it had worked. True, he hadn’t been able to think of the word to begin with, but he knew that would get Purple’s attention regardless.

“Exactly,” he said in a softer tone.

“So… what do we do if I can’t yell?”

“We wait.”

“And I can’t eat snacks.”

“We still wait.”

“And we can’t pummel anyone.”

“Yeah, just wait.”

“Or throw them out of the airlock to feel better.”

“We wait, Pur. We _wait.”_

“I _hate_ waiting!”

“Me too.”

They sighed in unison. Red adjusted his hold on Purple as he began maneuvering. With his PAK legs, he pulled himself down so he was sitting on the console, then he pulled Purple into his lap. Quickly, he ducked, shoving Purple down with him, as a drone tumbled helplessly by.

“You know, if you use your PAK legs as a shield, no one can hit us,” Red suggested.

Nodding, Purple extended his and formed a protective cage around them.

Red relaxed and smiled at his co-ruler as he gave him an affectionate squeeze.

“And now we wait,” they said in unison and sighed.


End file.
